Soldiers and vets blast military health system / Frustrations pour out to panel formed after Walter Reed scandal

Robert Pear, New York Times

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, April 15, 2007

2007-04-15 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- Wounded soldiers and veterans poured out their frustrations with the military health care system Saturday, telling a presidential commission that they often have difficulty getting care because military doctors are overwhelmed by the needs of service members injured in Iraq.

The soldiers and veterans described the military health care system as a labyrinth and said their families had been swamped with paperwork.

Marc Giammatteo, who has undergone more than 30 operations to repair a leg torn apart by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, said the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., had been inundated with wounded members of the armed forces whose numbers surpassed its capacity.

Giammatteo, a West Point graduate and former Army captain, said he had observed a "lack of caring or compassion in some of the workforce" at Walter Reed.

"On several occasions," Giammatteo said, "I, and others I have spoken to, felt that we were being judged as if we chose our nation's foreign policy and, as a result, received little if any assistance. Some individuals, most of whom are civilian workers and do not wear the uniform, judge the wounded unfairly and treat them similarly, adopting a 'Can't help you, you're on your own' attitude."

Giammatteo, a member of the commission, testified at the first meeting of the panel Saturday.

The panel plans to hold several hearings around the country and is supposed to issue its report, with recommendations, by June 30. Shalala encouraged troops and veterans to express their concerns to the commission through its Web site -- www.pccww.gov.

John Chiles, a retired colonel who was chief of anesthesiology at Walter Reed and chief of staff at the U.S. Army hospital in Baghdad, said the military medical system was "underfunded, understaffed and overwhelmed."

Dole, the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, said military medicine had made great strides since he was wounded in action in Italy 62 years ago. Of the commission's work, he said, "This is not going to be a witch hunt or a whitewash."

Tammy Edwards, another commission member, said she faced a never-ending "battle with paperwork" as she tried to get care for her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Edwards, who was severely burned in Iraq when a 500-pound bomb exploded under his vehicle.

After getting out of the intensive care unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, her husband faced a new problem, Edwards said.

"He was not receiving any mental health services and had fallen into a deep depression," she said. "He felt that he would be stuck in the hospital forever. His pain was so intense that he would often ask me why we did not let him die in the first place."

Edwards said the armed forces should focus on "healing the family unit as a whole."

"Family members are often overlooked," she said.

Richard Weidman, executive director of Vietnam Veterans of America, a nonprofit group with 60,000 members, said, "What happened at Walter Reed was not an aberration." It resulted, he said, from a policy of "taking care of our soldiers on the cheap."